Understand what video driver you are using and switch to another video driver for an AMD video card

General system Newbie
1

Hi guys, so the problem is this, having various video drivers I don’t know which one the system is using.

I would also like to switch to the amdgpu pro drivers because I would like to see how it behaves in various games.

My video card is a Radeon Rx 6750 XT.

Here are the specifications of my PC and the driver situation that EOS gives me:

> [sermor@sermor-eospc ~]$ fastfetch
                     ./o.                   sermor@sermor-eospc
                   ./sssso-                 -------------------
                 `:osssssss+-               OS: EndeavourOS rolling x86_64
               `:+sssssssssso/.             Kernel: Linux 6.9.1-zen1-1-zen
             `-/ossssssssssssso/.           Uptime: 16 mins
           `-/+sssssssssssssssso+:`         Packages: 1814 (pacman)
         `-:/+sssssssssssssssssso+/.        Shell: bash 5.2.26
       `.://osssssssssssssssssssso++-       Display (VG258): 1920x1080 @ 60Hz
      .://+ssssssssssssssssssssssso++:      DE: KDE Plasma 6.0.4
    .:///ossssssssssssssssssssssssso++:     WM: KWin (X11)
  `:////ssssssssssssssssssssssssssso+++.    WM Theme: Breeze
`-////+ssssssssssssssssssssssssssso++++-    Theme: Breeze (Dark) [QT], Breeze-Dark [GTK2], Breeze [GTK3]
 `..-+oosssssssssssssssssssssssso+++++/`    Icons: breeze-dark [QT], breeze-dark [GTK2/3/4]
   ./++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++/:.      Font: Noto Sans (10pt) [QT], Noto Sans (10pt) [GTK2/3/4]
  `:::::::::::::::::::::::::------``        Cursor: breeze (24px)
                                            Terminal: konsole 24.2.2
                                            CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 5700X (16) @ 4,66 GHz
                                            GPU: AMD Radeon RX 6750 XT [Discrete]
                                            Memory: 4,64 GiB / 62,71 GiB (7%)
                                            Swap: Disabled
                                            Disk (/): 291,68 GiB / 1,82 TiB (16%) - btrfs
                                            Local IP (enp4s0): 192.168.1.227/24 *
                                            Locale: it_IT.UTF-8

                                            ████████████████████████
                                            ████████████████████████

>[sermor@sermor-eospc ~]$ inxi -Gaz
Graphics:
  Device-1: AMD Navi 22 [Radeon RX 6700/6700 XT/6750 XT / 6800M/6850M XT]
    vendor: Sapphire driver: amdgpu v: kernel arch: RDNA-2 code: Navi-2x
    process: TSMC n7 (7nm) built: 2020-22 pcie: gen: 4 speed: 16 GT/s
    lanes: 16 ports: active: DP-2 empty: DP-1, DP-3, HDMI-A-1, Writeback-1
    bus-ID: 0a:00.0 chip-ID: 1002:73df class-ID: 0300
  Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 21.1.13 with: Xwayland v: 24.1.0
    compositor: kwin_x11 driver: X: loaded: amdgpu unloaded: modesetting,radeon
    alternate: fbdev,vesa dri: radeonsi gpu: amdgpu display-ID: :0 screens: 1
  Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1920x1080 s-dpi: 96 s-size: 508x285mm (20.00x11.22")
    s-diag: 582mm (22.93")
  Monitor-1: DP-2 mapped: DisplayPort-1 model: VG258 serial: <filter>
    built: 2021 res: 1920x1080 hz: 60 dpi: 90 gamma: 1.2
    size: 544x303mm (21.42x11.93") diag: 623mm (24.5") ratio: 16:9 modes:
    max: 1920x1080 min: 720x400
  API: EGL v: 1.5 hw: drv: amd radeonsi platforms: device: 0 drv: radeonsi
    device: 1 drv: swrast surfaceless: drv: radeonsi x11: drv: radeonsi
    inactive: gbm,wayland
  API: OpenGL v: 4.6 compat-v: 4.5 vendor: amd mesa v: 24.0.7-arch1.3
    glx-v: 1.4 direct-render: yes renderer: AMD Radeon RX 6750 XT (radeonsi
    navi22 LLVM 17.0.6 DRM 3.57 6.9.1-zen1-1-zen) device-ID: 1002:73df
    memory: 11.72 GiB unified: no
  API: Vulkan v: 1.3.279 layers: 10 device: 0 type: discrete-gpu
    name: AMD Radeon RX 6750 XT driver: amd v: (AMD proprietary shader compiler)
    device-ID: 1002:73df surfaces: xcb,xlib device: 1 type: discrete-gpu
    name: AMD Radeon RX 6750 XT (RADV NAVI22) driver: mesa radv
    v: 24.0.7-arch1.3 device-ID: 1002:73df surfaces: xcb,xlib

How can I do both?

2

The RX 6750 XT uses amdgpu.

 API: OpenGL v: 4.6 compat-v: 4.5 vendor: amd mesa v: 24.0.7-arch1.3
    glx-v: 1.4 direct-render: yes renderer: AMD Radeon RX 6750 XT (radeonsi
    navi22 LLVM 17.0.6 DRM 3.57 6.9.1-zen1-1-zen) device-ID: 1002:73df
    memory: 11.72 GiB unified: no

It is rendering on the RX 6750 XT. You can set it up to use vulkan-radeon and accelarted video decoding etc. as per the Arch Wiki. If you need any help with that just ask as the wiki provides the info but has links to other pages in order to set things up.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/AMDGPU

Edit: I wouldn’t recommend using the proprietary drivers myself but if you wanted to they can be installed.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/AMDGPU_PRO

Edit: As per the link if you read through it.

Users of graphic cards other than Radeon Pro are advised to use the amdgpu graphics stack

Edit: amdgpu is part of the linux kernel.

3

I want to use it for testing, out of curiosity.

Ok, I have all the amdgpu-pro packages installed, but the loaded drivers are always the open ones, that is: amdgpu.

[sermor@sermor-eospc ~]$ glxinfo | grep “OpenGL vendor string” | cut -f2 -d":" | xargs
AMD

What I didn’t understand is how to switch from open drivers to proprietary ones. How you do it?

PS: in that guide it says how to see if the proprietary drivers are loaded or not, not how to switch to using them by default. Or at least I didn’t find it.

4

Not sure you can, the easiest way is to uninstall the free drivers, and if something goes wrong reinstall them in a TTY.

1 Like
5

Ok, thanks, that might be a possible solution.